Uncovered: A Close Look at the 4G Evolution for Mobile Operators

BELLEVUE, WA--(Marketwire - February 2, 2011) - 4G Americas, a wireless industry trade association representing the 3GPP family of technologies, today announced that it has published its highly anticipated resource report on 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) standards work and the evolution to 4G and beyond. The white paper, 4G Mobile Broadband Evolution: 3GPP Release 10 and Beyond - HSPA+, SAE/LTE and LTE-Advanced, provides detailed information on the status of IMT-Advanced, on 3GPP Release 10, including HSPA+ enhancements and the introduction of LTE-Advanced, and the planning for Release 11 and beyond.

"The lives of more than 5.3 billion users worldwide today are being impacted by mobile services, which continue to evolve to higher levels of performance with mobile broadband innovation," said Chris Pearson, President of 4G Americas. "GSM operators -- and now WiMAX and CDMA operators -- can choose to evolve their networks in ways that best suit their assets and business environments with benefits that offer flexibility, scalability and economic advantages, with HSPA+ and LTE."

The GSM family of technologies, which are interchangeably called the 3GPP family of technologies, are all based on the evolution of standards developed for GSM, EDGE, UMTS-HSPA, HSPA+, LTE and LTE-Advanced.

UMTS-HSPA is the leading mobile broadband technology used by the majority of wireless operators and subscribers worldwide today and into the foreseeable future. Wireless data service demand continues to drive the rapid growth of HSPA technology with 376 commercial HSPA networks and worldwide subscriptions to UMTS-HSPA estimated at over 665 million by Informa Telecoms and Media at the end of 2010. Informa has further predicted that by year-end 2011, UMTS-HSPA subscriptions will surpass 1 billion; by 2012, they will reach nearly 1.5 billion; and by the end of 2015 they are expected to exceed 3.3 billion.

Network enhancements continue to progress with 104 HSPA+ commercial networks today and 4G Americas expects that the majority of all HSPA networks will be upgraded to HSPA+. Evolved HSPA (HSPA+) networks can achieve peak theoretical downlink speeds as high as 42 Mbps today and that can be doubled to 84 Mbps with the first anticipated networks going commercial by year end 2011.

4G Mobile Broadband Evolution: 3GPP Release 10 and Beyond - HSPA+ SAE/LTE and LTE-Advanced provides detailed discussions of Release 10, including the significant new technology enhancements to LTE/EPC (called LTE-Advanced) that were determined in October 2010 to have successfully met all of the criteria established by the International Telecommunication Union Radiotelecommunication Sector (ITU-R) for the first release of IMT-Advanced. IMT-Advanced, which includes LTE-Advanced, provides a global platform on which to build next generations of interactive mobile services that will provide faster data access, enhanced roaming capabilities, unified messaging and broadband multimedia. The paper also provides detailed information on the introduction of LTE-Advanced and the planning for Release 11 and beyond. Release 10 is expected to be finalized in March 2011, while work on Release 11 will continue through the fourth quarter of 2012.

"This white paper provides a wide knowledge base for those who want to understand the scientific steps taken to lead to a worldwide business success for the wireless industry today," said Jim Seymour, leader of the working group that created the white paper and Senior Director, Wireless CTO Organization, at Alcatel-Lucent. "The incredible growth of mobile technology has had a profound impact on our lives and the way we communicate. The standards work of the contributors to 3GPP is at the center of this remarkable technological development."

With LTE already commercial on 18 networks worldwide and another 50 commercial deployments expected in 2011, the next phase of mobile broadband has already begun. As an all IP-based technology, LTE will allow for the expansion of the Internet experience on mobile devices, delivering multimedia content to the screen of choice. The vast majority of leading operators, device and infrastructure manufacturers support LTE as the mobile broadband technology of the future and there are over 200 global operators who have announced trials or intentions to evolve their networks to LTE.

"As we have stated before, all roads can lead to LTE -- for GSM, CDMA, newly licensed and potentially even WiMAX mobile operators," Pearson added. "The appeal of the 3GPP technology path is no longer only for GSM operators."

About 4G Americas: Unifying the Americas through Mobile Broadband Technology4G Americas is an industry trade organization composed of leading telecommunications service providers and manufacturers. The organization's mission is to promote, facilitate and advocate for the deployment and adoption of the 3GPP family of technologies throughout the Americas. 4G Americas contributes to the successful commercial rollout of 3GPP mobile broadband technologies across the Americas and their place as the No. 1 technology family in the region. The organization aims to develop the expansive wireless ecosystem of networks, devices, and applications enabled by GSM and its evolution to LTE. 4G Americas is headquartered in Bellevue, Wash., with an office for Latin America and the Caribbean in Dallas. More information is available at www.4gamericas.org.